The other day, my mother’s boss came by with her kids, and my mother had offered to let them have my old toys, which were gathering dust in boxes out in the shed-of-sorts. Turns out I didn’t need to bring all of them down, but it just so happened that things I thought I’d never see again were in them, in particular a few items that were special to me, mixed among the careless purchases of my youth.

I managed to save a certain item from my mother, who was offering it to the younger sister, but I couldn’t seem to save something that my friend had given me as a gift. I suppose you could guess what it was, but I thought that it was missing, perhaps even thrown out, yet here it was. She asked me about it and I mumbled out an answer, and she asked. “But can I have it?” which was so clear it shook me entirely. Can you imagine a three-year-old asking you that? You can’t say no to kids, so I let her have it, and here I am, sitting 48 hours later, in regret.

I admit, before it got put away into the shed the gift had been sitting in my room, in a crate, where I put a lot of similar items. I didn’t exactly miss it. Yet when the kid took it and put it in her bag, I felt the tears well up in my eyes. It felt so sad to see something I hardly remembered. But I did remember. In junior year of high school I even wrote an essay on it and what it meant to me, because it meant a lot. Of course, the essay was so bad that I didn’t get a grade on it, but it clearly meant something to me at the time.

I had thought that giving it away was a mature move, but I still find myself sitting here, thinking about whether or not the kid is treating it well or has just thrown it away, or worse, mutilated it as kids are wont to do. It made me think of the other things I had lost, previously a much-favored limited Daft Punk pin from a fanzine that only had one print run, and before that, my Wii. I was so upset when I heard my mother had thrown it out that I texted friends about it, ranted on social media, the whole charade. She said that I wasn’t playing it and hadn’t for a very long time (I more or less stopped playing video games when I entered middle school, which was a good 10 or 11 years ago), and there was no use keeping it around, so she threw it out. I couldn’t believe it. She didn’t even ask me or think of selling it off! But it’s been a few months since, and while I still feel a pang of sadness, I’m over it. So I imagine I’ll be over the loss of this gift, the loss of my pin, and the loss of my Wii, and probably the countless other things that my mother threw out in the name of cleanliness.

I am a sentimental sap, even if at all the wrong times. I thought I could pride myself on not wanting things, saying that every time my parents offered to get me something, I always said “No, I don’t need anything. If I want anything I’ll get it myself.” And yet I have to admit I am stupidly attached to things, because they hold meaning, however small and relatively insignificant it meant. To me, that gift from my friend meant the world- it meant they thought of me at that particular moment they saw it in the shop, knowing I would like it, and they were very right. It’s not the only gift of theirs that I got, but it’s one of the few that I still know where to find.

I suppose the hardest part of it all is how unexpected it is. Yes, I am upset my parents do not treat all of my possessions with the same respect I do (although I suppose you could say my allowing of them to sit in a storage box is hardly respect), but if I had known I was going to lose it, I would been able to brace myself. The day I lost that pin, I retraced my steps in the pouring rain, trying to find it, but to no avail. I was so sad, I sat for two hours in a classroom, trying to study in vain until I took a nap and slept off the sadness. (Sometimes sleeping off a feeling really helps). But nothing can prepare you for sudden loss except for perhaps a lack of possessiveness-recognizing that things will inevitably slip through your fingers, whether you like it or not. You won’t even know when until it’s too late.

It feels silly to think this way about material possessions. Human relationships are the harder thing to lose, and I find myself with less and less of them as the years go on and as I retreat further and further into myself. But so long as things have meaning to them, I like to believe they are not insignificant. After all, why do people hold on to things for years, passing them through generations? Possessions are not meaningless-they are extensions of our personality, and losing them means losing a small piece of ourselves as well.

So I hope that kid treasures what I allowed her to take. She probably won’t and never will, maybe even throwing out the doll before she’s old enough to remember who allowed her to take it (I did not give it away), and know what it meant to them. I suppose, in short, I should “get over it.” So that’s exactly what I intend to do, no matter how long it takes.

(The older I get, the more convinced I am that minimalism is the way to go but lord, the things I will have to throw out. And anyone who knows me knows I love my books. A fruitless endeavour.)